Alabama survivors still in shelters

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) - Lunchtime approaches, and a tornado survivor tries to sleep on one of dozens of cots that fill a converted gymnasium as others mill around. A few yards away, a man irons a pair of pants atop a folding table. The portable showers are outside in the parking lot.

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Mondi and Jon Madden

It's been a month since tornadoes bulldozed wide swaths of the South, killing more than 300 people in seven states, yet nearly 100 Alabama survivors are still living in public shelters where the nights are fitful and the days muggy and boring. It could be a preview of what's in store for some people in tornado-ravaged Joplin, Mo., after a twister killed at least 125 people there and leveled entire neighborhoods.

Nowhere in the Southern tornado zone is the lingering shelter problem worse than in Tuscaloosa. The home city of the University of Alabama took the biggest hit in the April 27 storms, losing 41 people. More than 5,000 homes were damaged or destroyed in the city.

With some people struggling to navigate government aid operations and others left without a bed because the twister socked a homeless shelter in the city, some say they have no alternative but to camp out in the gym at a community center, located in a public park a few miles from some of the worst destruction in the state.

Standing in the shade outside the Belk Activity Center on Tuesday, Antonio Meeks said he sought help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency but was denied. He'd been staying with his sister before a twister leveled her place, and he now has no records of income, an address or identification.

"They want all this proof, and I don't have anything," he said.

Mayor Walt Maddox said the shelter could be open for weeks.

"There's no easy path out of this situation," he said.

Frank Lambert said he has been stuck in the shelter for weeks because he lacked bus fare out of town and wasn't interested in aid from FEMA, which he hasn't trusted since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Lambert said the Alabama storm swept away his home, three vintage motorcycles, an album collection, medals and ribbons from Vietnam, and nearly everything else he owned.

"Everything I have is in two suitcases," said Lambert, 60. "There are people here who if they had somewhere else to go they wouldn't be here."

Only 300 or so people were in shelters three days after the twisters hit on April 27, a statistic that state officials.

But some of those who went to shelters set up by the American Red Cross, churches or other organizations are still there. Officials said 89 people remain at the gym shelter in Tuscaloosa, and four are still living at a church in a hard-hit section of Birmingham, about 50 miles to the northeast.